Sourav Ganguly revisits Kohli's performance on 2014 Australia tour

While the Indian cricket team juggernaut is certainly on a roll, former India skipper Sourav Ganguly has revisited India’s tour of Australia in the 2014 series, something that was indeed one that molded Kohli as the player that he is today. Kohli had his first taste as India skipper on that tour when MS Dhoni pulled out with an injury. However, this was also something that saw Kohli become the skipper that he is today. Ganguly went on to add that those performances down under were perhaps the best he has ever seen.

“I think the tour of Australia in 2014 completely changed Virat Kohli the batsman. Four back-to-back hundreds in that series, I think that was above all. His performance in that series was by far the best I’ve seen in a long long time. And I don’t know whether Kohli himself can match that again,” Ganguly to India Today in an exclusive interview.

Ganguly went on to add that it was all about peaking at the right time in one’s career, something that Kohli is going through at the moment. “It’s about being at the peak, it’s a situation in an athlete’s career where you just hit it. There’s no when, there’s no how. It’s just a patch you hit and you make the most of it. Rahul Dravid from 2001 to 2005 scored runs all around the world and it’s the same thing with Virat Kohli,” he added.

While the former India skipper has gone on to state that Australia will indeed be better than Bangladesh, the fact of the matter is that Virat Kohli is good enough to get a double against Australia as well.

“Australia will be better than Bangladesh. They’ve got the fast-bowling attack to exploit these conditions. The likes of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and the rest will get the ball to reverse. But once again the challenge for Australia will be spin. That’s the key in the sub-continent, you have to play spin well and bowl spin well.

“But Virat Kohli is good enough to get double hundreds against Australia also. So it doesn’t matter what the opposition is, here you have a player who can get runs in all conditions and get runs against the best teams in the world. He will be up and ready against Australia because he knows that’s a big series,” Ganguly said.

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